Echoes in the Dark
by xXxWinglessAngelxXx
Summary: Roxanne, her best friend Geoffrey and her sister Narcissus live in a seemingly normal village - called Astasia - where they go about there daily routines. One afternoon, however, they will find that Astasia is not all that it seems...


I'm running, sprinting past dark, menacing trees, shadows looming from the dark lining of the forest around me. Behind me, I can hear Geoff and Narcissus' pants as they follow me through the spooky trees, and hot on our heels is… an animal.

Some kind of animal somehow penetrated not only the mountain barrier around Astasia, but also got through The Watchers. How? No one knows. It's never happened before.

I swerve around one final bend of trees, my lungs burning with the need for air, and the miniscule amount of breath I draw in scrapes painfully past my raw, scratched throat. I skid to an abrupt halt, hearing Geoff let out a yelp of surprise as he and Narcissus barrel into me. We are confronted by the mountains.

All three of us whirl around, our eyes wide with terror as we face the monster that followed us. Its huge, scary shadow looms out at us, and Narcissus can't take it. She scrambles backward, whimpering, and trips. Her hands flail above her head as she looks desperately at us, her mouth gaping in a silent scream of terror. Then, suddenly, she's gone.

"Narcissus!"

Hold on, wait a second. I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me go back and explain how this happened, describe our city, our way of life. Then you'll get it.

Here, in Astasia, over half the streets are deserted, most of the houses are in ruins and beyond any hope of repair, and most of the population either dead or missing. Our ways have changed. We used to live like any other continent, in peace and prosperity. But then came The Code.

The Code is a series of laws created by the new overseer of our city, Chasity Lefare. The head honchos of our continent are known as The Clan, and they rule over Astasia with an iron fist, keeping everything tightly under control, with no exceptions or tolerances.

They not only aided in creating The Code, but also The Mark. The Mark is an eight-pointed star with a coded dot in the middle, known as the tattoo dot. Everyone has The Mark by the age of eighteen and each tattoo dot is unique to the person who bears it. The Code is the strongest law, and must be memorized by all.

This is The Code;

At the age of 16, every resident of Astasia must be imprinted with the Mark;

Any crime is punishable by death;

Allegiance and loyalty must be pledged to The Clan alone, any rebels will be executed;

All transportation must be controlled by The Clan, and;

Anyone who disobeys The Clan will be hunted without mercy.

So it basically rules out any chance of escape. Most of the population follows The Clan's orders without question, following them around like lapdogs. But not all of us are like that. Me, my best friend Geoffrey, and my sister Narcissus. We're the outcasts, judged by everyone as disloyal and ignorant.

My name? Well, my name's Roxanna, Roxanna Marquelle.

Dawns spreads gently through the forest, caressing the ground with its peach pink, dove-gray and robin's-egg-blue fingers. Tall, leafless branches scratch and jab at the cloudless mauve sky, stained bright colors by the early arrival of the sun.

Hands trailing over the frost-tipped branches of ferns and brambles, feet easily navigating the route known by heart, I weave through the trees, following a path not marked out on the ground, but rather in my head.

Joining in the chorus of lively song are the remaining animals; birds, squirrels, mice and voles. They are really all that's left. But they are plenty.

The Clan ruled out hunting, but they themselves destroyed the rest of the animals in cold blood. They found them pestering and useless. They are a few of them, but they are only used for food.

I tilt my head back to observe the barely visible patches of pastel sky between the interweaving branches of the early spring trees, still stripped bare of their leaves.

It wasn't long before I emerged from the trees, blinking in the bright light, standing in a small clearing, with flower buds sprouting from the lush green grass. Sitting cross-legged in the middle, with smiles on their faces, and their eyes bright, were Geoff and Narcissus.

"Hey!" I called, grinning as I sprinted over to them. We usually met up in the forest, to go out walking or just to talk. With The Clan being so strict and under-control, we hardly ever get leisure time.

"Hey, Roxy," Geoff greeted me, using the nickname Narcissus had given me.

"So, what do you…?" I'm cut off as a loud, guttural growl-like noise emanates from the bushes behind Geoff. My body goes stiff, and my eyes widen as I carefully track the noise, as it circles round us.

"What was that?" In no time, Narcissus has stood up and crept back to stand, quivering, beside me.

"I don't know, Narcissus," I answer in the same furtive whisper. Geoff slowly rises and takes only a couple steps back before a creature, a horrifying, gruesome creature, launches itself from the bushes.

It only takes two more menacing steps before, out of the corner of my eye; I see Geoff mouth something to me. I frown, tipping my chin forward, toward him. He mouths it again, and this time I catch it.

_Run._ I immediately obey, grabbing Narcissus' wrist and taking off through the trees. Soon after I hear Geoff sprinting behind us, his feet pounding against the hard-packed forest floor, and then I hear the monster's ferocious roar.

It's a loud, chilling noise, and it sends shivers lancing down my spine. Beside me, I can hear Narcissus let out an audible whimper, as she pumped her legs harder, propelling herself forward faster.

I risk a quick glance behind me, and I notice two things; the first, the one that instantly catches my eye, is the beast. It's swifter than we thought. It's leaping over debris and logs like it was born doing this.

The second thing I notice is that we are steadily moving into the deeper, darker part of the forest, where the trees grow more closely together, where less light seeps in through the canopy of skinny, clawing branches.

Now I'm back where we started. Me, Geoff and Narcissus running for our very lives through the shadowy trees, in desperate hopes of escaping the beast that pursues us.

It's lizard-like, with a night-black pelt and red stripes on its back, long, venom-tipped fangs, and jowls dripping with saliva, deadly-looking claws, and a frill around its neck. Where did it come from? Why is it here?

Then I round the last cluster of trees. I feel Narcissus, and then Geoff tumble into me, their cries of shock and surprise soon replaced by ones of disappointment and fear.

We whip around, eyes stretched wide at the sight of the monster's shadow. Its flicking tongue darts in and out, snapping just in front of our faces. Its rank breath washes over me, causing me to let out silent retches and gags.

Just as it is reaching out a long, frightening claw to us, Narcissus lets out a murmur of terror and stumbles back, her foot catching on a fallen branch. She is instantly thrown back, her mouth open in a shriek that is silenced by her own immense terror.

"Narcissus!" Right when I'm expecting her to fall against the mountain's base, she just disappears. Right into thin air. It baffles both Geoff and me, rendering us speechless with shock. Finally, I manage to choke out one word,

"Where?" That pretty much sums it up. Where? Where did she go? Then we remember. It's the snarl that brings us back. Back to what is facing us, what is the death threat already on our plate, without having to worry about Narcissus' mysterious and shocking disappearance.

I feel like running. I feel like screaming until I pass out from air loss. But I can't. I'm frozen, my body stiff with fear and shock. I can feel Geoff beside me, stiff as a board as well. We need to get out of here, right now. But how?

Then, all of a sudden, I get an epiphany. "The mountains," I whisper tentatively to Geoff, keeping my voice low, "they must be fake. If Narcissus can fall through it, maybe we can run through it." Geoff turns his head and I feel his deep brown eyes boring a hole in my skull.

"It's worth a try," he whispers back, and I see the glint of his teeth in the watery light as he grins at me.

"On the count of three," I murmur quietly. "One…" we both brace ourselves, ready to run back, as the beast circles us, it's tongue flicking in and out. "Two…" I tense my muscles, planting my feet firmly against the ground, my heart hammering against my ribs. "Three!" We both whirl around and take off, heading full-tilt to the mountainside.

As we near the rough, rocky wall, Geoff lets out a warning cry, and I leap just in time to avoid tripping and tumbling over the same branch Narcissus did.

I close my eyes tight as we near the mountain, expecting to run into solid rock and get thrown back, into the jaws of the monster. I jump into the barrier, putting my arms up in front of me to lessen the impact. But none comes. I fly through empty air and am just blinking open my eyes when I crash to the ground with a jarring _thud._ We have landed on a steep incline, and if we have tripped, like Narcissus, we would have rolled further downhill.

Then, with a sickening thump, I hear Geoff land heavily beside me. I lay there for a few minutes, listening to my own labored breathing and Geoff's groans of pain as he rolls about beside me, clutching his arm, which is bent at an odd angle, he must have landed on it.

Geoff has always been the strongest of all of us teens, he's always the one to stand out in a crowd and assert himself without hesitation. That's why we get along so well. Our personalities are as different as humanly possible. We are exact opposites.

"Narcissus?" I whisper, propping myself up on my elbows, ignoring the shrieks of protest my muscles give. Right now, my little sister matters more. "Narcissus, are you here?" Then, I realize calling her is pointless. If she fell through that barrier, she's unconscious at best, dead at worst; she must have rolled down the incline.

I push myself painfully into a sitting position, casting my eyes about.

We are sitting in a huge, arcing cave that's so large; the roof disappears in the gloom. The walls are far beyond my capability of seeing, concealed in shadow, and all around us are the _drip-drips_ of water trailing down the walls and forming pools on the ground.

"You do know what this means, right?" Geoff's voice is quiet, yet so sudden that it startles me. I jump, whipping around to face him. He has stopped his moans of pain and is sitting up, head bowed, cradling his injured arm. When I do nothing but sit there and stare at him in confusion, he repeats, "You do know what this means, right?"

I… well, I mean…" I trail off, tears springing to my eyes. "No," I whisper sadly, "no, I don't know…" My tone must have been quite desperate, because Geoff scooted closer to me and put his arms around my shoulders. "It means," he begins in a clear, steady voice, "it means that The Clan have been hiding something from us. Astasia is obviously not what it seems." I mull over this for a moment, and then decide that he's right. I am mentally slapping myself for being so weak, and I sit up straighter, wipe the tears from my eyes and clear my throat.

"So The Clan…" I start slowly, trying to make sense of this.

"…Lied to us." Geoff finished for me. "Yes, they did."

"No," I say suddenly, surprising not only Geoff, but also myself. "No, they didn't lie to us, they betrayed us. Astasia is a lie. But how? How did they do it?" _And where is Narcissus?_ I add silently, my own desperation echoing in my head.

"I don't know, Roxanna," Geoff sighs. "But… I have a feeling we'll soon find out."

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**~xoxo WinglessAngel**


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